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'Just one more thing': Falk dies at 83

Becky Krystal, Los Angeles

PETER FALK, the raspy-voiced actor who won four Emmy Awards as the deceptively rumpled homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo, a character he played on television for more than 30 years, has died at his home in Beverly Hills, according to a family statement. He was 83 and had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Starting with a made-for-TV movie in 1968, Columbo became the role that cemented Falk's place in popular culture and tended to overshadow his powerful series of dramatic portrayals and skilful comic work in film for directors including Frank Capra and John Cassavetes.

Few actors were as linked to one role for so long as Falk, whose cockeyed glare from a glass right eye and slightly dishevelled appearance hid a compelling dramatic intelligence he brought to the part.

In addition to choosing the detective's car, a beat-up Peugeot, Falk plucked a raincoat from his closet as a major prop device. Other running gags were based on things the audience never saw: Columbo's first name (Falk joked that it was ''Lieutenant'') and his wife.

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To catch suspects off guard, Columbo would often fish a shopping list out of his trench coat instead of a crucial piece of evidence. He could procure an inadvertent confession by prefacing his question with a seemingly harmless, ''Just one more thing''. The actor named his 2006 memoir after that catchphrase.

Falk took a circuitous route to acting, having been a merchant navy cook and government efficiency expert before rising to prominence as a stage actor in the mid-1950s.

Peter Michael Falk was born in 1927 in New York City. At three his right eye was removed because of a cancerous growth, and he was given a glass eye. The eye supplied him with fodder for colourful stories, including how it ended up in the mouth of a Pekingese and the glass of gin that jazz pianist Art Tatum had been drinking.

Falk's first marriage, to Alyce Mayocheck, ended in divorce. In 1976, he married actress Shera Danese. Besides his wife, survivors include two daughters from his first marriage, Catherine and Jackie Falk.

Reflecting on his career, Falk told The New York Times in 1990, ''Never have thought about setting goals - so I never had to worry about achieving them. My career just sort of happened. And as a strategy? It hasn't worked out all that badly.''